Division of Astronomy & Astrophysics
University of California, Los Angeles
Andrea M. Ghez, a professor of Physics & Astronomy who holds the
Lauren B. Leichtman & Arthur E. Levine
chair in Astrophysics, is one of the world's leading experts in observational
astrophysics and heads UCLA's Galactic Center Group. She earned her B.S in
Physics from MIT in 1987, and her PhD from Caltech in 1992 and has been on
the faculty at UCLA since 1994. Best known for her ground-breaking work on
the center of our Galaxy, which has led to the best evidence to date for the
existence of supermassive black holes, she has received numerous honors and
awards including the Crafoord Prize
in Astronomy (she is the first woman to receive a Crafoord prize in
any field), a MacArthur Fellowship,
election to the National Academy of
Sciences, the American Academy of Arts
& Sciences, and the American
Philosophical Society. Her work can be found in many public outlets
including TED, NOVA's
Monster
of the Milky Way, Discovery's
Swallowed by a Black Hole, and
Griffith Observatoryi. For more
information see
http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~ghezgroup/gc/
and
http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~ghez/.
Thursday, November 21st 2013, 18:00
Stephen Leacock Building, Leacock Auditorium (room 132)
The Monster at the Heart of the Milky Way
Discover how Andrea Ghez and her team use the world's most powerful telescopes
and next-generation imaging technology to peer into the center of our galaxy
with more resolving power than ever before. By studying the motions of stars,
Professor Ghez provides the best evidence that supermassive black holes exist,
challenging our knowledge of fundamental physics and suggesting that most,
if not all, galaxies harbor such objects at their cores. Her work has also
shown that the environment near a central supermassive black hole looks
nothing like what was expected. In the near future, she hopes to test
Einstein's theory of relativity, as well as theories of galaxy formation
and evolution confronting time-honored hypotheses.
Note: The AstroMcGill
outreach group will organize observations of the night-sky following the
lecture (weather permitting).
Friday, November 22nd, 15:30
Ernest Rutherford Physics Building, Keys Auditorium (room 112)
The Galactic Center:
Unveiling the Heart of the Galaxy
The proximity of the center of our Galaxy has presented us with a unique
opportunity to study a galactic nucleus with orders of magnitude higher spatial
resolution than can be brought to bear on any other galaxy. This advantage,
along with the recent advances in high angular resolution imaging technologies,
has allowed the first observations of individual stars at the very heart of a
galaxy. After more than a decade, such observations have transformed the case
for a supermassive black hole at the Galactic center from a possibility to a
certainty, thanks to measurements of individual stellar orbits. The rapidity
with which these stars move on small-scale orbits indicates that 4 million
times the mass of the sun resides within a region comparable to the size of
our solar system and provides the best evidence yet that supermassive black
holes, which confront and challenge our knowledge of fundamental physics,
do exist in the Universe. Subsequent high-resolution imaging studies of the
Galactic center have shown that the stellar population near our Galaxy's
supermassive back hole is quite different from the predications of theoretical
models for the interaction between central black holes and their environs
(an essential input into models for the growth of nuclear black holes). In
particularly, the observations have revealed an abundance of young stars in
a region that is inhospitable to star formation and, conversely, a dearth
of old stars where as a stellar cusp is expected. Further improvements in
measurement precision should enable tests of Einstein's theory of General
Relativity in the extreme environment near a supermassive black hole.
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